Slice of PIE: a linguistic common ancestor – Science Weekly podcast

Nicola Davis explores Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical common ancestor of modern Indo-European languages and asks, where did it come from? How and why did it spread? And do languages evolve like genes?

Swedish, Ukranian, Punjabi, and Italian. To many of us, these languages are as different and distinct as they come. But in the same way that dogs, sheep and pandas have a common ancestor, languages can also be traced back to a common tongue, linguists say.

Enter the hypothetical common ancestor of all modern Indo-European languages, known as Proto-Indo-European (PIE). But, without clues as to language in our genes, how is it that we can trace the origin and evolution of PIE? And, what can new insights in archeology, ancient DNA, and linguistics reveal?

To explore all this and more, Nicola Davis speaks with the University of Waikato’s Dr Andreea Calude, who explains how linguists are trying to provide a clearer picture of PIE using its modern-day daughter languages. And to help try and answer the when, where, and why of PIE’s timeline; she speaks to Dr Paul Heggarty from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, who reveals how advances in ancient DNA techniques are offering new insights.